Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Good Things

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Good Things

Continuing one of my favorite traditions around here, in no particular order, here are some things that made me happy this year:

• We got some new blood at the top. Both Tulane and Oregon State spent all year as serious contenders for the best team in the country, and both managed to make their way to Omaha before playing out. Tradition is a good thing, but it's nice to see some growth, especially in sections of the country or conferences that aren't traditionally represented among the elite.

• Attendance is up in the SEC. Although the Drive for 1.5 campaign, which aimed to get to 1.5 million in total attendance, came up just a bit short, the league did manage a record-setting 1,490,005 fans in the 12 home parks for the year, with eight teams topping 100,000 in attendance.

• Arizona State turns it around. Staffed by kids too young to know better peppered with a couple of All-Americans, the Devils turned from an 11-11 start to finish 42-25 and come within one game of the championship round.

• Coaching salaries continue to rise. Several coaches around the nation, led by Georgia Tech's Danny Hall, got high-dollar (relative to the market, at least) extensions. Since all that can do is draw better talent to the college coaching ranks, this is a good thing.

• A single starting date is announced (with one remaining legislative hurdle) beginning in 2008. This has the potential to get the game much more thoroughly in the public eye, as the current mess of everyone straggling in when they feel like it will end.

• Alex Gordon finished up in style. Despite growing up in a place where high school baseball is almost an afterthought due to the weather, Gordon held up to the expectations of being a returning All-American and led the Huskers to their best season ever.

• TV coverage continues to increase exponentionally. All of the supers and CWS are on, much of the regionals were on regional networks, and the number of regular season games available continues to increase, as hockey's absence opened a door.

• UC Santa Barbara's Chris Malec returns to the field from a battle with testicular cancer. Sometimes, just showing up is a triumph.

• There have been no outrageous pitch counts in Omaha so far. One of the sport's big recruiting problems has always been that, during the brief moment we had in the national limelight during the CWS, pitchers would be asked to perform at lengths that would push high schoolers to look for that minor league contract. This year, for whatever reason, the coaches have mostly behaved themselves.

• Perennial doormat San Francisco put together a great season. The inequities in the selection process denied them their first postseason bid, but the Dons had a great season, finishing in the top 20 in the ISR's.

Rather than keep returning to the subject of pitch counts and pitcher usage in general too often for my main theme, I'm just going to run a standard feature down here where I point out potential problems; feel free to stop reading above this if the subject doesn't interest you. This will just be a quick listing of questionable starts that have caught my eye -- the general threshold for listing is 120 actual pitches or 130 estimated, although short rest will also get a pitcher listed if I catch it. Don't blame me; I'm just the messenger.

(*) Pitch count is estimated.

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Boyd's World-> Breadcrumbs Back to Omaha-> Good Things

About the author, Boyd Nation